Christopher J. Bryan, Gabrielle S. Adams, and Benoît Monin, “When Cheating Would Make You a Cheater: Implicating the Self Prevents Unethical Behavior.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 142(4): 1001-1005, 2013 [pdf].
• People who engage in unethical behavior like to weaken the connection between their behavior and their identity. They might cheat, but they don’t want to be a cheater. Similar distinctions might surface with litter/litterbug, vote/voter, or drunk driving/drunk driver.
• The authors run an experiment that involves a frame of “cheat” versus a frame of “cheater.” Many more people (apparently) cheated when the frame was about cheating, than when the frame was about cheaters. A follow-up, internet-based experiment had similar results.
• The results do not imply that we should always try to adopt the “identity” (cheater) framework, even if that frame does diminish the number of people cheating. Maybe if you cheat despite being told not to be a cheater, your cheating will be even worse!
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